In my last post, I explained how somebody can become spiritually UNCLEAN by merely coming into physical contact with an UNCLEAN object.
Now, I’m well aware that such an idea smacks of pagan superstition and sorcery similar to what primitive tribes who live in the jungles might believe .
Well, this is a good time to remind you of the AS-IN-HEAVEN-SO-ON-EARTH principle I’ve talked about many times before.
In other words, all of these physical rituals and commands connected to the Tabernacle are intended to progressively demonstrate and reveal certain spiritual truths that exist in the heavens.
But here’s the thing.
The physical will always be inferior to the spiritual!
No matter how articulate or eloquent certain words or phrases are or no matter how beautiful or profound a given drawing or illustration is, it will always pale in comparison to the unfathomable depths of the actual spiritual or heavenly reality it is expressing.
This can’t be helped.
As humans we are confined to a physical 4-dimensional universe of length, width, height and time.
And although the spiritual is capable of entering our 4-dimensional physical universe, it is NOT part of it.
The spiritual world resides in an entirely different dimension than the physical world we live in.
And that’s where the challenge or problem lies.
We human beings are flesh but HASHEM is Spirit.
And since we are flesh confined to a physical universe, the way God teaches us a good portion of His heavenly truths is by using physical things like “words“, “rituals” and “objects” like the Tabernacle and so on.
However, and this is very important to understand, the physical expression of God’s heavenly truths will always fall short of the spiritual reality they are attempting to depict.
That’s just something we’re going to have to accept until we are transformed and taken up into the heavens to be like Him and with Him.
This side of heaven, we can have some understanding of God and the spiritual world but it will always be very, very, very LIMITED!
While the Tabernacle, the priesthood, and the Biblical Feasts are all physical expressions of certain spiritual principles and truths in the heavens, they are still just a shadow of the reality they are reflecting.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important, irrelevant or shouldn’t be followed.
The physical model may not be complete but it is still a God-ordained reflection and demonstration of heavenly truths.
And it’s important to recognize that there’s an enormous gap between the physical and spiritual reality.
Have you ever wondered why something bad happened to you?
Or in general, have you ever wondered why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people?
I’m talking about when circumstances in life don’t logically correlate the way we think they should.
That’s when we begin to get angry with God.
We scream out to the heavens WHY! WHY! WHY!
Why did my wife have a miscarriage?
Why did my marriage end in divorce (I thought you had chosen this girl for me!)?
Why did my mother die of cancer (she was a good and loving lady!)?
Why am I still single at my age?!
Why was that man born blind?!
Why is that jerk my boss?!
Why did I lose my job?!
There is no end to perplexing questions like this, and many have lost their faith because they couldn’t find satisfactory answers to many such uncomfortable realities and situations we all inevitably confront in this fallen world we live in.
If you want a good Scriptural treatise on this topic, I highly recommend you read the Book of Job which deals with the topic of how to respond when unexplainable tragedy strikes a good or innocent person.
The Scripture tells us that Job was a righteous man, yet God allowed horrible tragedies to befall him.
Job lost his health, wealth, and his children.
Some of Job’s friends said this was all the result of certain sins he had committed (they were wrong).
In the final analysis, God begins a dialogue with Job that starts off with the following:
“Stand up like a man, and brace yourself;
I will ask questions; and you, give the answers!
Where were you when I founded the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
Do you know who determined its dimensions
or who stretched the measuring line across it?”
-Job 38:3-5
Obviously it is beyond the scope of this post to examine the whole dialogue between Job and HASHEM, but if I was to simplify the gist of it down to its bare essence, I would say this.
God doesn’t answer all of our difficult questions simply because our limited finite minds wouldn’t be able to grasp His answers to us anyway.
Again, we’re talking about the gap between the physical and the spiritual that is not so easily bridged.
There are some things this side of heaven we may never understand.
However, when unexplainable tragedy strikes, we still have a choice.
We can deny our God and lose our faith.
Or we can trust God and accept that even though we don’t understand what is happening in the physical, there is a higher wisdom far above our comprehension working out all things for the good in the spiritual realms.
I choose the latter.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“As Yeshua passed along,
he saw a man blind from birth.
His talmidim asked him,
“Rabbi, who sinned —
this man or his parents —
to cause him to be born blind?”
Yeshua answered,
“His blindness is due neither to his sin
nor to that of his parents;
it happened so that God’s power
might be seen at work in him.”
-John 9:1-3
Rich,
Once again I like your stuff. I agree totally that we cannot understand God at all, and I just recently gave a message on my website about bad things happening to good people. If you don’t mind my “plugging” my own site, here is the article: http://www.messianicmoment.com/?s=why+bad+things+happen
I also have written on Ecclesiastes as having this same issue, which you point out so well, that we cannot understand God. I believe the message in that book is that the desire to understand God’s ways and why things happen is the reason Kohelet was so distressed and found everything he did just “chasing the wind”. It’s because what he was trying to do was understand why things happen. Ultimately, three times he concludes that we should just live our lives and appreciate what God has given us. This is the message you bring us also- don’t try to understand that which can’t be understood and just trust in God.
Thanks for your comment Steven. I just read your article. Yes, my thoughts exactly. It’s when things don’t happen according to our expectations that we turn sour and begin to lose faith. Ecclesiastes is also one of my favorite books. Shalom!